


Two of A Kind

by TheSHERlokidwhovian



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Halloween, I listened to Tanz der Vampire while writing this hehe, I'm sure the Count would laugh at Erik, Mentions of Violence, One Shot, PotO 13 Days of Halloween, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 06:40:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21132311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSHERlokidwhovian/pseuds/TheSHERlokidwhovian
Summary: He's been walking the earth for centuries, having accepted his fate a long time ago.One day though, everything changes, when he finds something on the deserted streets of Paris.A little one shot written for a-partofthenarrative's PotO 13 Days of Halloween on Tumblr.





	Two of A Kind

_Blood. All that blood. Painting her snow-white skin, dying her crème dress in a bright red. Her lifeless body in his arms, her doe-eyes empty. _  
_What had he done? What on earth had he done? He would burn in hell. The angel would burn in hell._

* * *

Thick fog crept through the streets of Paris. The moon had taken over the sceptre of the sun as the sky’s ruler and now shone onto the roofs of the centuries-old city.

For a stranger, somebody who did not call her their home, it seemed as she was dead to the world and yet she was even more alive than during the day. Rats weren’t the only ones making their way through the narrow alleys and deserted streets. While many citizens sought their luck in pubs and brothels, fleeing from the cold night air, one man, a mere shadow, wandered through the stronghold of art.

A black hat, a dark cloak and a porcelain mask on his face. Swift and silent steps; he made sure not to be seen, too dangerous an encounter with a drunk individual would be. For them. It wasn’t guilt telling him to keep his hands off the people of Paris, he did not care about any of them; their tragic past or hopes and dreams. He simply did not want to arduously wash out another blood stain from his pearl white shirt.

He had accepted his fate a long time ago. Why couldn’t they do the same? Their lives were nothing, short and dolorous, without a meaning or a purpose. And unlike them he had been gifted magic, the music. The music of the night to his dismay. No one ever heard it, ever listened. Nothing more than a scream in the darkness. Despite all this, the ignorance and rejection, it was his ambrosia, his elixir of life, his reason to live.

The scent of blood reached his nostrils. Fresh, but of no man or woman; a hint of silver and copper. Quiet whimpering from the northwest, it sounded like a child. But it couldn’t be. No child would…

Without hesitation he followed the pained echo, bewilderment gracing his almost aristocratic features.

In an alley, behind a stack of boxes, formerly filled with beer and vine, there sat a creature. Small and adrift. It shivered and tears were streaming over its ashen cheeks. He heard no heartbeat.

When he dared to take a step closer to this strange being, it flinched, stared at him with deep blue eyes reminding him of a mountain lake he had come across years ago. Auburn hair, coarse and braided, once pinned up but now lying over its shoulder, framed its pale and sunken face. Clothes, rather rags, covering its chest and thighs. Shackles around its ankles and wrists, blood dripping onto the stone beneath. A girl. Not older than twenty.

Like him. She was like him. Lost, scarred, thirsty. Thirsty for blood.

For a moment he considered, considered if she was a threat to him, a bait, but no. She was of his kind.

At a rattling pace he walked towards her, frightening the girl and making her shudder with fear, drew his sword and hammered at the shackles, breaking them and freeing her.

Consternation spread over her face, followed by relief. She had no idea, had she? Who he was. What he was. And in all of the sudden, her eyes shut, body falling to the hard floor.

Not losing another precious second, he knelt down, grasped her and lifted her up, pressing her against his chest.

She was so tiny in his arms. Fragile even.

Why did he do this? He couldn’t, he mustn’t repeat his mistakes. But she was like him. Like the shadow he had become. Yet what if she didn’t survive the night?

One way. There was only one way to save her.

A haunting melody echoed through the cavern beneath the Opera Populaire, filled with pain, with sorrow.

He waited, waited for her to awaken from her deep slumber. Otherwise she would starve. She needed blood, but more than a mere glass or a simple bottle. In this state she would need not less than one grown man, more likely two and disposing of a body wasn’t easy these days. New methods of investigations had complicated the provision of proper nourishment.

At least he was lucky enough not to be forced to live solely off the wonderful dark liquid pulsing through the veins of a beautiful young soprano. Bread, cheese and grapes, occasionally some fine vine. His stomach had accepted this unusual choice of sustenance.

The sound of porcelain, a vase, shattering into a thousand pieces alerted him. He jumped to his feet and hastened to his bedchambers, where he had brought her to rest.

Dried tears on her cheeks, she gaped at her hand. A shard stuck in her palm. No pained expression on her doll-like features, no. It was curiosity that glimmered in her dark eyes. Mesmerised she tilted her head, following the reflection of the dim candlelight. She was humming the very melody he had played a few moments ago.

“Wandering child, so lost, so helpless.” The voice of an angel. The angel of music? The angel of death? “Yearning for my guidance.” Stepping forward, closing the distance between the two of them, he knelt down, grasped her hand and slowly pulled out the piece of porcelain. Cautiously, not wanting to hurt her, he took a strip of cloth from a silver platter standing on top of a richly ornamented side table, and wrapped it around her hand.

He had treated all her wounds, both on arms and legs, and had dressed her in a shirt once stolen from the costume stock of the opera, which reached her knees. Her skin may have still been pale as parchment, yet it was clean now. Merely her hair he hadn’t dared to touch.

Biting his wrist, he held it out towards her, indicating her to drink.

She hesitated, her eyes jumping from his to the blood running down his palm. “B-But you…”

“Drink, if you want to live.”

Needing no second invitation, she grabbed his arm and buried her teeth in it.

A wave of sensation rolled through his body. His heartbeat fastened, his breath hitched and suddenly he remembered. Her chocolate brown locks lacing her round face, her doe-eyes sparkling with joy, her divine voice singing his melodies. And then…her body, dead; no life, no soul. Nothing but desolation.

“Stop…” He muttered, dazed and feeling how more and more blood was sucked out of his veins. “Stop!” Pushing her away, he stumbled backwards, creating a path of purpura.

“I-I’m sorry…I…I was so hungry…” She wiped off the remaining blood. “But…how can I…?”

“Who did this to you?” The scars on her shoulders, her back, her thighs; he had noticed them, when he cut the rags and cleaned her wounds. Was she like him? Not only of his kind, but something that is not supposed to exist? He had found her at night-time. What if she could walk the earth during the sun’s reign? Like him?

“They…they killed my family. My brothers and sisters…the masters and…and the…they killed the mentor…sliced up her throat, dragged her to courtyard and…and then they set her on fire.” A single tear rolled down her cheek and dropped onto her open palm. “Silver. It was silver. Poured it over me…I can remember the scent of burned flesh…my burned flesh. They did it again. And again and again and again and again and again…”

Aghast, not believing what he was told, he lowered his gaze and pressed his sleeve against his wound, attempting to stop the bleeding. In all these years he had never heard of such cruelties. He knew about the deaths at the stake, how they burned them or sometimes waited for the sun to rise and leave his kind’s fate to mother nature and yet nobody had ever dared to torment them without any mercy. They killed to survive but those who had done such cruelties to her, they could never have had a soul. They were like him.

“You saved me. Why?” If he only knew the answer. Was it compassion? Loneliness? Atonement for what he had done twenty years ago. Twenty years. To him nothing more than the blink of an eye. He had seen empires rise and fall, had watched the greatest architecture grow, had tasted delicacies from all corners of the globe, had heard the music of angels, had felt love pulse in his veins.

When he raised his gaze again, he looked into a pair of deep blue eyes, clear as the mountain lake in the alps he had once taken a rest at. They were not empty, not dead, but full of life.

“What’s your name?” She asked, curiosity flashing over her rosy face. Her cheeks were flushed and the girl who had been at the brink of death mere minutes ago, had turned into a doll children were gifted at Christmas.

“I…” Never had anyone asked for his name, never had anyone cared about him. She was heaven sent and he did not deserve her. “I’m Erik.”

“Erik…” So sweet it sounded on the tip of her tongue. “My name is Aurélie.”

How could she be kind after all what had happened to her? Why was she kind to him? A monster, an abomination, he was. The devil’s child. Hiding his abhorrent visage from the world, the punishment for his existence. He had not asked to be born, but he had asked to be freed from this curse his life was, many years ago.

Having closed his eyes, Erik didn’t notice her hand until it brushed his jaw, his cold and icy skin, his mask. The moment he felt her fingers closer around his mask, she tore it from his face. 

“NO!” He screamed in agony, clawing at her, before covering his disformed features. “No…”

Afraid, Aurélie crawled backwards, his porcelain armour in a tight embrace, and he followed her. Like a predator closing in on its prey, he drew nearer with every passing second.

“Please don’t hurt me.” She breathed, tears welling in her eyes.

He froze. And in all of the sudden the past, his past became the present.

She was like him. He could not kill her, he could not suck her dry as he did that fateful day, he could not turn her and thus take her life, for she was already dead. No snow-white skin painted, no crème dresses dyed red, no empty doe-eyes.

“I killed her…Why did I kill her? She was supposed to be my bride…my living bride.” He cried, burying his face in his hands. “And when I grasped for life I always killed the things for which I yearned. I wish to be a flame and reduce to ashes but I have never burned. I long to fly high and higher and yet these chains keep dragging me down. I want to be an angel or the devil himself, yet I am nothing but a creature longing for things I can’t have. And the split goes through my very soul. It´s a wound that never mends. Our desires are elusive and the hunger never ends.”

“You are the one who walks in the sun, who does not know fear of silver.” Raising his head, he looked at her in bewilderment. “I thought they had caught you too, had done the same to you, as they did to me, but you’re so much more. They cannot harm you.”

“I am not invulnerable.” It was true, the sun was not his enemy and yet he hated it, despised it. He could not lead a life in the light for his face spread darkness and night. He was not supposed to exist.

“You’re our saviour, Erik!”

“No. I’m your doom.” Alone. No companion, no master, no mentor, no novice. Nobody. Damned to live in solitude. “I can not turn anyone. My blood is poison.”

“And a remedy.” Aurélie touched his cheek, a soft smile on her lips, ere her hand wandered downwards to his chest. “None of us has a heartbeat…except for you.” But hers echoed in his ears, he could clearly hear it. How was this possible?

“When my master, my father, died, he left a gaping hole, as somebody had ripped out my heart and thrown it into the fire.” Her fingers around his wrist, she pulled Erik closer, pressing a soft kiss to where he had bitten himself and lead him to her ribcage. “Can you feel it? The pounding?” Their hearts beat in unison. They were connected.

Like him. She was like him. Found. Healed. Hungry.


End file.
